


Resurrection

by Elldritch



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F, Happy Ending, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26448106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elldritch/pseuds/Elldritch
Summary: The emperor is dead, everything is great, and Harrow works out a way to resurrect all the children her parents killed. Gideon suggests getting help from some old friends, because two hundred children means a lot of diaper changing.Total fluff. I just needed everyone to be happy!
Relationships: Abigail Pent/Magnus Quinn, Dulcinea Septimus/Palamedes Sextus, Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	1. Six months after the emperor's (final) murder

“Are you sure about this?” Gideon asked. 

“I’ve run the calculations several times now, and Sextus has checked them. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work.”

“Yeah, but, Harrow… what if it goes wrong?” Gideon reached out and took Harrow’s hand, seeking comfort.

“It isn’t _going_ to go wrong.” Harrow squeezed Gideon’s fingers between hers, trying to imbue the gesture with her confidence.

“But… if your parents murdered those kids to give you life, then isn’t there a risk that bringing them back is going to kill you?”

“Before I was a lyctor, perhaps, but now that I am sustained by your soul, there’s no reason not to set them free. Besides, I’ve had plenty of practice now in separating other spirits out from my own.”

Gideon still didn’t look convinced. Harrow kissed her until the mulish line of her lips relaxed, and then continued.

“You know it’s only because of you that I can do this?”

“That doesn’t make me feel better, Harrow. Yeah, we’ve done some epic shit together, but half the time it ends up with one or the other of us dead, or stuck in the river, or whatever. I don’t think I can do that again.”

“Even if it kills me… knowing now that I can do this, how can I not? How can I live each moment with the decision that their two hundred lives are not worth risking my own? A risk which, as I’ve already said, is so completely minor that even Palamedes couldn’t criticise my theorem?”

“You know if you die, I’m going to do something completely stupid about it.”

“Griddle… I’m counting on it. I’m counting on you. I always count on you. Honestly, you’re the reason I’m not scared. We’ve already proven a dozen times over that death can’t stop our love… it can only delay it for a while.”

“Well, I’ve had enough delays, so you’d better get this right, Harrow.”

“I will.”

Gideon put a plate of toast in front of her, and then sat down beside her at their table, with a plate of her own, and a steaming mug of coffee. Harrow sighed, but took a bite of toast before Gideon could get cross. Knowing that she couldn’t actually starve anymore had magnified Harrow’s lifelong disinterest in food, and she resented how much time she wasted on eating. 

Still, she had to admit that she didn’t mind being able to sit on the austere and unpadded Ninth furniture without feeling the familiar ache in her ischial tuberosity, or bruising her spine against the hard upright back of her chair.

Reminding herself of how irritatingly cautious and tentative Gideon had been with her body, before regular meals had given her a small cushion of flesh over her bones, and how much more fun they had together when Gideon wasn’t scared of breaking her, Harrow grudgingly chewed her way through one slice of toast.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do, after?” Gideon asked when she’d finished her own food. She finished first, even though there’d been twice as much on her plate. No one ever needed to remind _Gideon_ to eat.

“What do you mean, after?”

“Well, you’re about to resurrect two hundred children. You said fifty-four of them were infants?” Harrow nodded confirmation, and Gideon continued. “I don’t know how to take care of even one baby, let alone 54! Do you even know how to change a diaper? You can’t expect the nuns to do everything - half of them are in diapers themselves.”

“Hmm… it’s possible that Palamedes and I became rather too preoccupied with the theoretical side of things. I hadn’t even considered the wider practicalities.” Harrow pushed her plate away, frowning, her meal unfinished.

“See, that’s why necromancers need cavaliers. If you and Palamedes didn’t have me and Cam, you’d forget to even eat.” Gideon put Harrow’s rejected plate back in front of her, pointedly.

“We’re lyctors, Nav, we don’t need to eat.”

“You do if you don’t want me to kick your ass for not taking care of yourself. Remember the rules?”

“Three hours sleep - preferably in a bed - two meals, and one shower per day.” Harrow replied in a sing-song voice which indicated this was something she’d been forced to learn by rote. She sighed, and started on the second slice of toast.

“ _Minimum._ That’s as a minimum, Harrow. You know normal people sleep for, like, eight hours every day.”

“Then it’s no wonder no one ever gets anything done. You cannot expect me to waste a _third_ of each day on unconsciousness.”

“One of these days, Palamedes is going to find a sleeping pill that works on lyctors, and then these conversations are going to go differently.”

“Sextus will do nothing of the sort. He has no more interest than I do in wasting time unnecessarily.”

“Then Cam will.”

“That’s a more plausible threat,” Harrow admitted.

“You know who would be really good with a whole bunch of kids?” Gideon said, suddenly.

“Absolutely nobody we know?”

“The Fifth.”

“Not a chance. I am not surrendering two hundred children of the Ninth into the Fifth House. They’re plenty good at making their own babies, and they don’t need our help. These are Ninth children, and I will not abdicate my responsibility to them.”

“I didn’t mean the Fifth House, I meant Magnus and Abigail.”

“Gideon, they’re dead.”

“So? You’re already resurrecting two hundred people, you can’t manage two more?”

“I suppose if I modified the theorem parameters, there might be still enough residual ambient thanergy clinging to us from the emperor’s death to accommodate a few more souls.”

“You could do it then? Bring back the Fifth?”

“The Fourth as well, in fact. Now I think of it, there’s no reason I couldn’t bring back all the dead of Canaan house. Well, except Teacher. I don’t think he’d thank me for that.”

“What, everyone?”

“I suppose that does mean I’d have to bring back the Eighth… much as I do not care for them, it would be politically unwise to deliberately snub the Eighth House that way. Especially with all the current upheaval.”

“Ugh, okay, but can we resurrect them separately, and let Colum decide if he wants to tell Silas he’s alive, or, like, do whatever the equivalent of faking your own death is when you’re already dead? Colum’s alright - he doesn’t deserve all the shit that Silas gives him.”

“I need to talk to Palamedes. I suppose he’ll want to try and bring Dulcie back,” at the look on Gideon’s face, she clarified, “the real Dulcinea. Bringing Cytherea back would be even crueller than bringing back Teacher.”

“You know, I bet BoE could fix up her cancer. They’ve got all sorts of medical shit we don’t have - it’s not like the Seventh House spent a lot of time thinking about how to cure something they regarded as a feature, rather than a bug.”

“You always were smarter than I gave you credit for, Griddle. Very well. The two hundred can wait a few days more. Let’s go work this out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I did look up the proper name for butt bones for this fluff. It's possible I need to get a life!


	2. Seven months after the emperor's (final) murder

“You’re awake!”

Harrow groaned. She had not experienced such a prolonged agony since achieving full lyctorhood with Gideon. She was used to her hurts healing almost instantly these days, but she’d been conscious for somewhere between five seconds and one hundred years, and her head still ached. 

Memory was very slow to return to her, crowded out by pain. This was how she’d used to feel, she remembered, when she’d drastically overextended her necromancy. But now that she was a lyctor, her access to thanergy was almost infinite.

For her to feel this awful, she must have done something truly substantial.

Memory returned.

“Did it work?” She had to say it twice, because her first attempt was an unintelligible croak.

“It worked. You've been asleep for two weeks” Gideon said, sounding faintly awed. “Two _weeks._ That’s like, longer than you’ve slept in your whole life. Put together. Palamedes had to put you on a drip to stop you drying out.”

That explained the odd discomfort in her left hand, which she’d barely noticed over her furious headache. Her flesh did not easily tolerate foreign bodies - she wondered what Sextus had contrived to stop her skin from simply rejecting the needle and pushing it out. She decided she didn’t care enough to look.

“They’re alive?”

“They aren’t awake yet. Palamedes sent over to the Sixth for a bunch of medical shit to keep them healthy until they do, but he doesn’t seem worried. Apparently he found records of the original resurrection on the Mithraeum, and it took them like a month to wake up, but dad had all that stupid god power to keep them going until they did - we’re relying on bags of fluid and lots of machines that go beep, and just, like, tonnes of my blood. I know I regenerate like crazy, even for a lyctor, but we’re going to have to have a chat about how that doesn’t mean he gets to keep pinching bits of me ‘for science’. Uh, we kind of had to take over the whole chapel to make space. I hope you’re not mad.”

“God is dead, and Alecto is free. What else are we going to be using the chapel for?”

“Good point. We’ve all been taking bets on who was going to wake up first. I win, obviously. You’re too stubborn to actually rest.”

Harrow proceeded to prove Gideon’s point by trying to sit up. The lance of pain which started in her occipital bone and radiated out from there was almost enough to make her abandon the effort, but she didn’t. Her brief break from responsibility was over, and it was time for her to resume the mantle of Reverend Daughter; her people would be waking up any time now, and she was determined to be there to greet them, and welcome them into the strange new world she and Gideon, and the others had made for them.

“Paint,” she croaked. Gideon passed her a bowl that most definitely did not contain her sacramental paint.

“Broth first. It’s guaranteed one hundred percent human-free, and if you’re well enough to sit up, you’re well enough to eat.”

Harrow scowled, but could already tell she was too weak to get out of the bed without Gideon’s help, and she had an abundance of experience with how stubborn her cavalier could be when it came to nutrition, and all the other dull minutiae of life.

The broth tasted of salt and carbon, and little else, but Harrow must have been severely dehydrated, in spite of the drip, because the salt tasted heavenly.

“Ianthe made it,” Gideon said, with a scowl. Ianthe had mellowed significantly since reuniting with her sister. It had taken some doing to work out how she could follow the eightfold word with Coronabeth, with Naberius’ soul already in the mix, but the effort had been worth it. Harrow could almost enjoy the company of an Ianthe who knew that her sister would enjoy the same longevity as she did, though Gideon still held some grudges.

Harrow still didn’t know exactly what had passed between the two of them, during the brief span of time where Gideon had occupied Harrow’s body, because neither of them would tell her. It seemed to be the only thing they agreed on. 

She was surprised that Ianthe and Coronabeth hadn’t returned to Ida, but actually, none of the Canaan house survivors had left the Ninth House since the emperor had died, although their mission was now technically complete. Being able to carry a blade openly and not having to pretend to be a necromancer, seemed to make Coronabeth happy, and anything which made her happy, made Ianthe happy too. 

Aiglamene had taken Corona under her wing, and Camilla and Gideon joined them for practice most days. While Camilla trained, Sextus was studying the remnants of the wards on the (now open) Locked Tomb. Apparently Anastasia had used warding techniques that even the Sixth House had no records of, and he wanted to write a paper or five.

Judith was still there too, pacing, and brooding, and moping, and generally making a nuisance of herself. Her military training ran deep, and even after the magnitude of John’s crimes had been revealed, she had a hard time letting go of her vows. Plus, it had to be difficult being the only necromancer here without a cavalier. Perhaps she’d have an easier time of things when Marta woke up.

Gideon insisted that none of them was going to leave at all. Harrow wondered how much of that was wishful thinking, but she couldn’t discount the idea entirely; they’d all been through so much together that no one else could understand. How much shared suffering and achievement and greatness and loss did it take to turn a group of strangers into a family? Harrow didn’t know, but she thought that wherever that line was drawn, they’d probably long since crossed it.

And, they were all going to live a very long time - even Judith, if Marta agreed. They’d better get used to each others’ company. 

Apparently a two-week coma made one introspective. Harrow shook her head to banish the thoughts and fix her mind on the present, and regretted it instantly.

“Ow”

Gideon took the bowl from her hands before she could drop it. Suddenly, Harrow felt a wave of soothing energy wash over her, like a balm. She heard Gideon’s muffled grunt of effort, and then the sensation stopped. Her headache was gone, her weakness was gone. She felt perfect.

“What did you do?”

“Cam and I worked out that now we’re whatever the cavalier equivalent of ‘lyctor’ is, that maybe we can do new stuff too. I just sort of remembered what it felt like when you siphoned me, and did that. Did it help?”

“Yes… but you shouldn’t have tried it! What if you’d hurt yourself?”

“I stopped before it got bad. I’m not a total dumbass you know. See? Not even a nosebleed.”

Harrow looked up at Gideon’s face, and she was right. Her cavalier showed no sign of strain or damage. Another thought occurred to her.

“If you could do that, why didn’t you as soon as I woke up? That headache was awful.”

“If I had, would you have eaten the broth?”

Harrow couldn’t deny that Gideon had a point, so she didn’t say anything. Instead she rose to put her paint and robes on, and shave two weeks’ worth of growth from her scalp. Her congregation would be missing her, after this long unconscious, and she needed to see her resurrected two hundred for herself.


	3. Seven months and two days after the emperor's (final) murder

The resurrected seemed to be waking according to who had died most recently, which was a relief. If the pattern held, that meant that the adults would all wake long before the children. Silas had already left, as had Marta and Judith. Harrow had been surprised by how sad she was to see the Second necromancer leave, but with her cavalier restored, they’d decided that their place was with the cohort, helping to oversee the Nine Houses’ transition to whatever they were becoming, now that they had no emperor, and could no longer be regarded as an empire. 

Colum had refused to leave with Silas, though he hadn’t taken Gideon up on the offer of remaining officially dead. No one knew what had passed between the Eight House necromancer and cavalier, but Colum seemed content living a penitent’s life in the Ninth House, and despite being half the age of the youngest of Harrow’s other penitents and nuns, he’d been rapidly accepted into their ranks.

His vow of silence was far more genuine than Gideon’s had been, and Harrow found herself reassured that her House would still be a haven for those in need of silence, contemplation, and peace, even now there was no Locked Tomb to guard or God to worship. She wasn’t sure how she’d have coped if the Ninth had wholly changed its character.

Harrow’s congregation had not all found it easy to come to terms with their open Tomb and dead God. She still held mass for them, when she could. This currently took place in her chambers, with the chapel full of beds, but they made it work.

She wasn’t sure what to say during those masses. None of the old intercessions seemed appropriate, with the locked tomb standing open, but knucklebone prayers needed no words. She wondered what they thought of now, when they prayed, and knew that some would be praying for the return of the King Undying, but she was their Reverend Daughter, and she would love and serve even those who wished life for the monster Harrow had killed. She wondered how she’d feel if some of them switched their worship to her, now she’d performed a resurrection of her own.

Sextus could tell from his machines’ infernal beeping when someone was about to regain consciousness, and so Harrow had been there to greet each of her dead as they awoke. Gideon had been there for most of them, though she’d bowed out of seeing Octakiseron, with the explanation that Palamedes had banned her from punching him, on medical grounds, and she just couldn’t guarantee that if she got within punching distance.

Now they were waiting for Abigail and Magnus to wake, and it was fortunate that they’d been able to move the empty beds of those who had already woken out of the chapel to make space, because everyone wanted to be there to see them. The Fourth teens were crying, and everyone was assiduously pretending not to notice. Gideon was not crying, though Harrow could tell it was only through sheer force of will, and she was grateful for that. Honestly, the thought of being able to see Abigail again, and tell her that she’d made everything all right… Harrow was a little choked up herself. 

Even Palamedes was there, although he was still casting frequent glances over to the bed where Dulcie lay. Even getting to her bed was a challenge; she was hooked up to far more wires and drips and machines going beep than anyone else, but Sextus managed it. He spent most of his days sat by her side, holding one needle-pierced hand gently in his. He said that she was responding well to the treatments BoE had sent them, but her condition had been so advanced that it was still too soon to be certain.

Abigail’s eyes opened first. She saw Harrow, and groaned.

“Have you gone and gotten yourself haunted again, dear? If so, I demand a better staging ground this time. Surely you’ve got enough control over the parameters by now to create a scenario minus the pain? My head is pounding.”

“Maybe the one with the canapes?” Magnus suggested, hopefully, from the next bed over.

“I’m afraid not,” Harrow said, and her voice betrayed tears, even if she’d tactically pinched off her lacrimal ducts to prevent any actual crying. “This one’s real; I’m not in control.”

“Real? But…”

Any further explanation was forstalled as Jeannemary and Isaac threw themselves at the newly awoken pair. Gideon and Camilla moved in almost perfect unison to push the two beds together and lever them up so that Abigail and Magnus were semi-upright, and before long, the Fifth and Fourth houses were wrapped together in a single, tearful embrace.

“You sent us away,” Jeannemary wailed.

“And a good thing we did," said Abigail. "That spirit was nasty.”

“Yeah, my mum was a real piece of work” Gideon said, quietly enough that she thought Abigail wouldn’t hear, but then, Abigail did have preternatural hearing when it came to muttered teen asides. 

“Your mother? Well, I suppose there was a certain resemblance…”

“You won’t believe who my dad was.”

“Well, if he’s anything like your mother, we might just have to adopt you ourselves. What do you think, Magnus?”

“I think we should adopt them both. Harrow needs parenting just as much as Gideon.” He reached out a hand to ruffle Gideon’s hair, which she surprisingly did not object to. In fact, that simple, fatherly gesture was too much, and the suppressed tears began to fall.

“You aren’t wrong.” Abigail agreed, casting a kind but concerned eye over at Harrow’s wasted frame and lined face. ”I think we can handle taking care of four teenagers, and it would be lovely to have a full house.” Abigail looked critically at Palamedes. “And don’t think you’re too old for some mothering either, Master Warden. You could use a few more home cooked meals!”

Camilla jabbed her necromancer in the ribs with an elbow, and snorted agreement.

“So,” Harrow said. She had intended to give the Fifth a little more recovery time before asking anything of them, especially when they had already helped her so much, but this seemed as good a segue as any. “You’re not averse to a large family?”

“Averse? Lord no… it’s probably for the best that we weren’t blessed with children of our own; if we’d been able, I think the Fifth House would have ended up with quite the population explosion.”

“Well, the Ninth house is having a bit of a population explosion itself, and as Reverend Daughter, I’m asking-” 

“Begging,” Gideon interjected. Harrow glared and ignored her.

“If you would be interested in lending a hand.”

“How big an explosion?” Abigail asked, suspiciously.

“Two hundred?”


	4. Nine months after the emperor's (final) murder

The two hundred awoke almost simultaneously, which had been a joyful chaos. With every member of the Ninth House pitching in, there were enough people that no one had woken alone, though many of the older children had been greeted by someone who also had an infant in their arms. 

Some were even greeted by family, or beloved adults - though they were two decades older now than when the children had died. Some were met by strangers, which couldn’t be helped, but they were all greeted by name. Each bed had been labelled with the occupant’s name and family details. They hadn’t needed to check the census records - Harrow had long since memorised each name, each face, and had carried them with her for years.

Most of the children had no surviving family, though Harrow knew that they would not go unloved. The remaining Ninth House congregation were so delighted at having young people around again that Harrow worried half of them were going to expire from sheer joy. Her congregation had been as depleted as ever when she’d returned to the Ninth - in fact, a few more, including Crux and Harrow’s great aunts had not lived long enough to see her return. She’d spent hours by each niche, saying goodbye. 

She was somehow unsurprised that John’s promised renewal had never materialised, so every face which had greeted her return was familiar.

Harrow had worried that the Ninth House would be even more isolated than ever, shunned by the other houses for harbouring those responsible for killing the emperor and ending the empire, but the Sixth at least had been so overjoyed at the news that Palamedes and Camilla were alive, that they’d been more than willing to send assistance. Once Harrow would have refused to even consider taking help from the other Houses, but she knew there was no way she could care for the two hundred alone, and she was determined to give them everything. She owed them that much. Besides, in the time it had taken them to plot and carry out the emperor’s end, she’d grown used to working with a team.

The Fourth and Fifth Houses at least were similarly pleased with the news that their heirs were alive, even if they were technically heirs no longer, having been replaced upon their deaths, and neither pair showed any inclination of wanting to return home and take up their mantles again, but the sole Ninth House communicator was close to burnout from the sheer volume of messages they were receiving. Nothing from the Eighth, which was not unexpected, and the Third House had been ominously silent since Coronabeth and Ianthe had refused to return and continue their deception, but Corona was confident they’d get over it. 

No one could predict how the Seventh House might react, when Dulcie did recover, and Palamedes was sure now that it was a case of 'when', not 'if'. Would they welcome their lost daughter, or see her health as an insult? Either way, Harrow supposed Dulcie was unlikely to want to go back, anyway. If the Seventh truly did reject them, she’d ensure that Protesilaus knew that he was more than welcome to bring his family and make a life here. Oddly she even hoped that it would turn out that way - she suspected that Ortus would benefit from having someone around to appreciate his poetry, once they got over their rivalry, and Glaurica had not been amongst the resurrected - her spirit had simply not returned when invited - so it would be good for him to have company. 

It was strange, wandering the Ninth House corridors and hearing them full of life. Harrow found that her days were full of the sort of petty tasks which came with keeping a healthy House going, and though some of the work facing her was daunting, she felt blessed to be free to occupy herself with complaints about faulty plumbing, and the quality of the food when it was Ianthe’s turn to cook. It was good to make decisions where the stakes were no longer life-or-death. 

Sometimes Harrow thought about asking Abigail to summon her parents’ spirits. She wanted them to be proud - wanted them to know that the Ninth House was strong and alive under her leadership, but she knew she had a lot more soul-searching to do before she’d be ready to face them. A part of her still hated her parents, and still felt they didn’t deserve to see her two hundred alive again, after what they’d done. An even larger part of her still longed for their approval in a way she knew would crush her, if they could not love the daughter who had killed their god. She wasn’t ready, but one day she would be. She had always been faithful. If her faith now was not in god, or in the tomb, but in Gideon, and her people, and the family they’d made, it was still faith, and it was stronger than ever.

With the other gifts the Sixth House had sent, there were a number of artificial wombs, and associated machines. They had no use for them just yet, but remembering how much her House had suffered, and the crimes they’d committed for lack of such technology, Harrow found the odd machines comforting. Gideon found her, one day, sat quietly in the store room where they were kept, and they’d both joked that if they never had to change a diaper again, it would be too soon. But sometimes their eyes met in a way which made her suspect that one day they’d change their minds. Sometimes when she held one of the infants, she’d close her eyes and picture herself holding a small, warm, wriggling bundle with a shock of red hair, or yellow eyes, and she’d feel a quiet yearning.

She guessed she should think more on whether lyctors even could have children, but she’d blurred the lines of possibility so many times for Gideon, and Gideon had done the same for her, that ‘impossible’ didn’t seem like a useful concept for the two of them any more. They had more than earned their happy ending, and now all they had left to do was live it.


End file.
